Title

Author

Date of Award

Spring 1-1-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

First Advisor

Sharon Black

Second Advisor

Frank Barnes

Third Advisor

Katie Siek

Abstract

With explosion of availability and use of mobile phones, in particular in developing countries, they are becoming a new platform to provide healthcare services. One of services on mobile phones, text messaging, is widely used in health care. Compared to voice text messaging has an advantage in unfavorable conditions, such as the edge of coverage, because it requires only several seconds of strong signal to transmit. The influence of telecommunications policy on its adoption is evaluated by interviewing experts from seventeen developing countries. Several obstacles to adoption are identified but no strong regional division found. Comparison of a specific application that uses text messaging, blood glucose monitoring for diabetics, to a traditional healthcare solution is evaluated in three different regions by performing a cost/benefit analysis. The regions are chosen because of different pricing schemes for text messaging. The sensitivity analysis on the assumptions of the model helps understand the factors better.